The Window Song

It's about time we celebrated the project success so far with a little song...this one is called the "Window Song" by a little know band who go by the name of The Kooks...

Although I said the building was water tight I was not strictly telling the truth.  In fact we've taken a massive gamble the last few weeks to commence plastering and internal wiring without windows!  Yes that's right we haven't had any bloody windows - just sheets of left-over blue vapour barrier from installing the UFH!

BUT finally I'm relieved to say that LOCKWOOD WINDOW COMPANY has finally come up with the goods after weeks of chasing.  The windows are from Germany - there's a theme here I'm sure but all of the quality products seem to stem from Germany - if we ant to kick start our own economy we need to get better at product manufacturing so I don't have to shop in Europe for materials.

We've gone for a quality frame with superb insulation, safety and security properties.  The frames are uPVC with a white internal facing and a laminated wood grain texture exterior in Anthracite Grey to give the property a really modern contemporary look to the external view.

Board out of my head

With the new boundary fence in place it was time for Derek and the team to get back to the main task in hand and start the process of plaster boarding and skimming out the rooms starting upstairs and working the muck down as always.

At the same time James the sparky started wiring the main socket and lighting circuits.

For the first time since we started the build the stress levels have began to rise significantly.  Finishing trades seem to all come at once and the team has grown from a few builders, brickies and labourers to four teams of builders, electricians, plumbers and joiners - and it's getting beyond a joke!

The number of decisions Helene and I are having to make each day is absurd.  Take for instance the simple question "Where do you want your sockets/lights and switches".  Of course we had a wiring diagram marked out before we started the build but lets be honest it's not until you walk inside each room that you really start to form a proper opinion. 

If I lost a £1 for every time we changed which way the doors opened, or the number of sockets or the combination of 1-way vs 2-way switches - well I'd be skint.  In fact that's what James keeps reminding me every time Helene changes her mind.  Change control has gone out of the window now my wife is involved - up until now Derek and I had managed to blind her with building science but to be fair she knows what she wants, she knows what works and above all she knows how to sell houses - something we have always factored into our decision making process from the get-go.  After all at some point we will sell this house so lets not make it too personal!

Not to be out-done by Paul, Derek goes one better and balances on a dry-wall drill - beat that!





Plastering is a very, very, very messy job when Derek is mixing but in the hands of a professional like Kerry the finish is absolutely superb and well worth the unavoidable mess as he "polishes" the plaster to a super-smooth finish.

Kerry makes light work of the ceilings with plastering stilts...

He is also a master at boarding out a room and manages to use every last scrap of plaster board for minimum wastage even when boarding out awkard spaces like stairwells...

Although he's the best poud-for-pound plaster in Brighouse it even gets to Kerry - fortunately we stopped him before he managed to hang himself on the lighting cables!

To add a bit of variety into the working day Derek through in a bit of concreting - the garage floor to be precise.  The method in the madness was to get the floor down so that the electric garage doors could be installed - or so I thought - crafty as he is I found out later that Derek wanted to use this as his lock-up for all of the expensive tools used during internal finishing!

Anyway with SPOT ON CONCRETE you get readymix concrete to order - nothing more - nothing less.  This takes the guess work out of ordering volume.  With a clever machine at the rear of the mixer the guys mix concrete by the barrow full blending just enough dry mix with water to fill the barrow.  This way the truck is not carrying wet concrete that is going off.  Ideal for small jobs like a garage floor - not cost effective for foundations though!

Out with the old...in with the new!

Well not quiet!

The build is progressing really well now and Dereks view is that he should be practically complete by mid-Oct ready for us to start moving in and completing final finishes such as interior paint work, lighting, flooring and external driveways and patios. So we need to crack on and get our current house that we renovated ready for marketing.

One of the key factors that we wanted to get right was the sense that the house we are building had somehow always been there so that potential buyers were not put off by it.  We had already spent a lot of money on the renovation and interior fit-out so the internals wouldn't let it down but the rear garden needed finishing off.

We had to hassle Derek and Paul to break off the main construction to get the boundary fence installed - something they really didn't want to do (rather Derek) but with Pauls help we measured up, placed the order and within a week were ready to install the decorative fencing.

We didn't skimp on quality simply because we wanted the panelling to look visually pleasing and also tone in well with the natural stone side elevation of the new house - something I think you will agree we pulled off remarkably well!!!

insert 258 and 259, 267, 268, 269, 270

Gardening is one of the strings I have to my bow and the finished result above started out in planning way back before the site was cleared.  I purposely removed as many of the existing shrubs, flowers and trees and stored them safely ready for when the time came to plant up the new boundary. 

The look that you get from planting mature shrubs and trees makes it seem like the border has been there for ages.  This all created the illusion that the new house has been there for ages too!  This was definitely a case where we did not get rid of the old!

Armed now with a finished product we engaged the services of Whitegates in Brighouse.  They have an excellent team at this branch who really know the local market and what sells.  A few photos and selective edit of the brochure by myself (I never leave this upto the estate agent alone - it's my product and I want to make sure that all it's positive points are highlighted - I know my house better than anyone else!).
Amazingly within the first week we have had several viewings and the second family to view came back the other day with an offer slightly less than asking price but one which in the current market and financial position we are in we accepted. 

And to cap it all off they were not in a chain either!!!! 

Looking back we should have bought a lottery ticket - Register your mobile and play the lottery by text!.

It doesn't rain it pours!

Well after yesterdays fiasco with the UFH I totally forgot that I'd scheduled the water board to lay the water mains down the drive today!  SO we've now got three dirty big gaping holes in the drive at 10:30am and the screed delivery was due at lunchtime - OMG!!!!

And to make matters worse Derek wasn't on site today either so I had to negotiate with the screed company to take the long route to the site to avoid another spoiled screed delivery nightmare.  Having explained the situation to the water board the contractors pulled out all the stops to get the mains pipe "moled" down th drive and temporary covers installed by 12:30 - 30 minutes to spare before the screed company arrived with the mixer wagons.

Screeding is a popular technique for bedding UFH pipework.  There are different mixes available from the dry mix where is is wheel barrowed into the house footprint then "tamped" down and "scraped" level or the increasing popular wet mix which allows the installer to pump a watery slurry into the house footprint then gravity takes over and with a little encouragement self levels.  The benefit of the wet system is that the time to install is significantly reduced although is more costly compared to dry.  The real advantage is that within an hour the screed is complete and going off.

Can I just say that the guys from A1 PUMP CRETE did a fantastic and professional job and explained every step of the process including aftercare - highly recommended.

The only slight nervousness I had was with the size of the trucks and the narrowness of the driveway - as you can see the drivers had to sugically extract themselves from the cabs - not one for the conniseur of bacon butties though!

Still I think you will agree the finished product is something special...just like glass!

Pied Piper of Brighouse

Now that the roof is on and the building is water tight work can begin in ernest on the inside. We have been remarkably lucky weather-wise with the build so far. In fact this has been one of the driest summers I've known for Halifax in quiet some time...let's hope it stays that way.
First job on the list is installing the Under Floor Heating (UFH). After weeks of umm-ing and aaarrggh-ing coupled with the excellent progress we have made we decided to plump for UFH instead of the more traditional radiator heating on the ground floor. Although Derek has done a fantastic job with the build thus far, the fact that we haven't hit many issues has meant that we haven't eaten our contingency so we thought we'd have a little luxury.

The configuration we've gone for is UFH downstairs and traditional radiator system upstairs. This means that there are now effectively 5 different heating circuits - 4 UFH circuits downstairs for each of the main living rooms and a single radiator circuit upstairs both controlled separately so we have gots lots of scope for how we configure our heating needs.  We will also supplement this with a wood burning fire in the main living area too especially given that gas prices are set to rise even higher over the next few years.

There are lots of different UFH systems but we've gone for the plastic water filled coils. This particular system is from Germany and is guaranteed for a minimum of 25 years. The system is typically installed on concrete block flooring like ours and comprises a layer of insulation followed by a layer of screed into which the UFH pipework is laid and then on top of this is the floor finish. In our house we are finishing with oak flooring but more on that later.



Mick gets to grips with laying the UFH pipework in the hallway.



The Manifold - the brains of the UFH

Spot the deliberate mistake in the picture above - the blue vapour barrier should have been installed over the top of the Kingspan insulation but under the UFH pipework so that the screed is effectively "floating"

What was I saying about not many issues and having contingency budget available - well this will mistake set me back a full day with a team of 4 plus a plumber. If only Mick had listened to Derek who questioned the installation at the time!

Anyway we couldn't hang about because the screed delivery was due same day but a few frantic phone calls and Derek managed to avoid numerous tons of screed being delivered to the site which would have had to have been dropped somewhere at cost to me, then we would have had to pay again to have the hardened screed taken to a landfill after which we would then need a re-order - several thousand quid down the swanny - I owe you big time Derek! Anyway after a days hard graft the guys finally get their act together and get the installation put right...well everyone except Paddy that is...



Whilst everyone else was hard at it putting right the UFH installation Paddy slept oblivious and awoke only to find that the UFH pipework had been laid around him!


After an eventful day everyone has gone home absolutely knackered but happy that the UFH is now ready to receive the screed tomorrow.

Shelling Out...

As you can see from these recent photos the main roof is now complete along with the guttering (so many styles to chose from) and the water tables (I mentioned these little babies a few posts back).  Water tables are basically solid slabs of stone used more for decoration that anything practical but you gotta admit it really finishes off the roof over the gable and besides this is the main elevation that visitors to our new home will see as they approach up the drive - marvellous!

Under Paul and Kezza's watchful eye James measures once and cuts twice - only Joking mate they'd be absolutely knackered without you keeping them on the straight and narrow!

We were stuck yesterday in terms of progressing with the rest of the roof structure above the garage and the utility room at the rear of the house until the scaffold was removed today. We've even been able to take off hire the Bumpa that Paul brought in to assist with hoisting thousands of tiles up to the top of the scaffold (available from TAG Tool Hire).  Saved an absolute shed load of hard work and aggro as well as speeding up the whole job of roofing.  Unfortunately to James's disappointment it would not carry his weight up there as well :¬(

Paddy has also recently completed all of his studying and college training so is now the official "greenhorn" Brickie of the team.  He's getting tons of experience being involved with Derek, Paul and Kez on this build having been in it from the very start - he was first on site to create the site access!  He's also very proud of the standard of his workmanship - in fact he's so bloody proud he can't help himself posing whenever I'm snapping shots of progress for this blog!  Still good work on that roof Paddy.

Derek and Paul keep on telling me that now we're reaching water tight stage the focus rapidly shifts to finishing trades...and that's when I really start to have to shell out wads of money!

We've already had Mick the plumber in to do what is know in the trade as first-fix.  This is basically routing all of the key hot and cold water pipes for sinks, baths etc. and laying down the central heating pipework.   We have chosen a combination of underfloor heating on the ground floor and tradition radiators on the first floor all powered by a gas fired combination boiler.  I post more information on how this works out later.  We've also got James the electrician who is scheduled to do his first-fix wiring later this week.  Again I'll post more on this later along with my plans to install a home network and media system for those of a technical disposition.  I've done some research into this already and whilst it's still a fairly niche thing to do I thought I'd give it a go.  I'll let you know how I get on but already I'm thinking my aspirations will need to be pegged back due to technology compatibility constraints - still my CAT5e cabling should arrive in a few days - boys and toys and all that!

The key for me right now though is getting the house I have recently finished renovating and that I'm currently living in on the market.  I don't expect to sell it very quickly given the current economic climate however as the saying goes "You can't win it...if you're not in it!"  I'll post the brochure as soon as we get the draft from the estate agents.

On the subject of economy, depending upon who you talk to I've built a rather confusing view on whether we are genuinely working our way out of the recession or if the warnings from Robert Peston are coming home to roost and we're actually on the precipice of a double-dip?  I don't profess to be an economist having only just recently progressed from News Round to News At Ten - and even then I forget to listen.  It's all bloody doom and gloom and if I believed every bulletin I heard there really would be no point getting up in a morning.  

Still it reminded me of a story I heard someone telling the other week on the train as I made my way down to London.  There was an article in the Metro (the freebie newspaper) about whether economic stimulus had had any material effect on kick starting the economic recovery.  Like I say I'm no economist but these two couldn't even spend a penny in a public toilet...anyway as they sat opposite me at my table I couldn't help but over hear as one of them explained what economic stimulus is supposed to achieve...it went something like this...(poetic licence aside the gist of the story is as I heard it - pure British genious)

A tourist visiting Blackpool drives through the town, stops at a guest house, and lays a £50 note on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night. 

As soon as he walks upstairs, the guest house owner grabs the £50 and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the £50 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the fish monger.

The fish monger takes the £50 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.  The guy at the Co-op takes money and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The prostitute rushes to the guest house and pays off her room bill with the guest house owner who then places the £50 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the £50 and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

I'll leave you to ponder this and work out for yourself...as the X-Files would say "The truth is out there".

A night on the tiles....

Whilst Paul and Derek argue over who gets the short stick the tile supplier is busy shipping the tiles to the site ready to be installed on the newly felted and battened roof.  I really can't remember who got the short stick but things did get ugly not long afterwards.

For sixty Derek certainly gives the "young-uns" a run for their money on the roof - I guess that were the dancing comes in hey Derek ;¬)

Once the roof felt had been installed I got a better feel for how the inner stairway would feel.  My fears were founded because it really started to feel hemmed in a dark and needed some light bringing into the space - even during a bright day it would be dimly lit from the glass lights in the front door way.

After some quick research and discussions with the guys we settled on installing a Velux Sun Tunnel which allows natural daylight to filter through the finished roof into the stair well - thereby reflecting eco-friendly natural daylight into the space.  It's a clever piece of kit that works based on reflection and diffusion physics.  Basically it's a silver-foil flexible tube and two glass windows - one on the roof and the other (diffuser) on the landing ceiling.  This roof is south facing so gets maximum daylight - all free of charge - I only need to use electric to light the stair well at night!

In the snap above you get to see the tiles laid out in the supporting battens and the water proof membrane beneath coupled with the lead flashings around the stonework of the chimney to give a weather tight covering that will last for many years.

Hopefully if the weather is favourable we should make good progress this week and next and get this aspect of the job finished along with the guttering.  We should then be able to dismantle the scaffold to enable the windows to be fitted giving us a completely water tight and secure shell.  A massive achievement in less than 10 weeks by any standard - a credit to the work ethic, quality and careful planning of all involved thus far - A BIG THANKYOU - you know who you are because I know you follow this blog regularly.

Once the scaffold comes down we can then get the dividing fence erected which will finally allow me to put the house we renovated (and are now living in) on the market in time for the summer viewings - fingers crossed for next week.